This proposal details a methodological study into the synthesis applications of peroxides. These studies serve two major purposes. First, they would provide new information on the reactivity of peroxides and the stereochemical consequences of their reactions. Second, they would illustrate the design of systems which could fully exploit the usefulness of the reactions of peroxides for the synthesis of biologically important natural products. An important result of this work will be the delineation of means for the preparation of related structural types that would not be directly available from the natural product.